Your appreciation of Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival will hinge on how well you like being led astray. It’s both the full embodiment of Villeneuve’s approach to cinema and a marvelous, absorptive piece of science fiction, a two hour sleight-of-hand stunt that’s best experienced with as little foreknowledge of its plot as possible. Fundamentally, it’s about the day aliens make landfall on Earth, and all the days that come after—which, to sum up the collective human response in a word, are mayhem. You can engage with Arrival for its text, which is powerful, striking, emotive and, most of all, abidingly compassionate. You can also engage with it for its subtext, should you actually look for it. This is a robust but delicate work captured in stunning, calculated detail by cinematographer Bradford Young, and guided by Amy Adams’ stellar work as Louise Banks, a brilliant linguist commissioned by the U.S. Army to figure out how the hell to communicate with our alien visitors. Adams is a chameleonic actress of immense talent, and Arrival lets her wear each of her various camouflages over the course of its duration. She sweats, she cries, she bleeds, she struggles, and so much more that can’t be said here without giving away the film’s most awesome treasures. She also represents humankind with more dignity and grace than any other modern actor possibly could. If aliens do ever land on Earth, maybe we should just send her to greet them. —Andy Crump
Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the Insider Picks team. We aim to highlight products and services you might find interesting, and if you buy them, we get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners. We frequently receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising sales team. We welcome your feedback. Want to get in touch? Email us at [email protected]In March 2014, Amazon announced an increase in the annual membership fee for Amazon Prime, from $79 to $99.[10][17] Shortly after this change, Amazon announced Prime Music, a service in which members can get unlimited, ad-free streaming of over a million songs and access to curated playlists.[18] In November 2014, Amazon added Prime Photos, which allows unlimited photo storage in the users' Amazon Drive[19] (though only some raw photo files count as photos).[20][21] Amazon also began offering free same-day delivery to Prime members in 14 United States metropolitan areas in May 2015.[22]
In April 2014, Amazon announced its Amazon Fire TV set-top box system, a device targeted to compete with such systems like Apple TV or Google's Chromecast device. The Amazon set-top box allows for streaming videos from sites like Amazon's own streaming service as well as others such as Netflix or Hulu. The device also supports voice search for movies, as well as gaming, which includes special versions of Minecraft, Asphalt 8, and The Walking Dead.[39][40] Amazon announced the Fire TV Stick in October 2014. The device replicates much of the functionality of the Fire TV.[41]

"Sometimes it's fun to have a straw with something, and sometimes it's just practical. I bought these to use in smoothies specifically so I could cut down on the massive amount of waste we all create by using disposable straws (something that even inspired a campaign by the National Parks Service). Once you've made the change, it's not even noticeable in your daily life, and it makes a big difference in the grand scheme of things for the environment. Plus, they come with their own cleaner, so you never have to worry about not being able to properly sanitize them." — Mara Leighton

But with that awesome power comes...strange choices. For some of us, that one-click checkout button can lead to some unusual impulse buys. For others, it's all too easy to start browsing Amazon in a late-night haze, saying yes to things you'd ordinarily never consider you needed in your life. But now that you've got a five-pound bag of Skittles or a dedicated wall-mounted purse hanger in your life, you've got to make the most of it, right?
On that day, the residents of this downtown Washington building decided to tame the chaos. They voted that the lobby required a redesign. The boxes would get their own new package room, behind a password-activated door. This decision would reshape the building's first floor, but they bet it would raise the value of the property. At least the ungainly stacks would be safe in a separate room.
LG V40 ThinQ offer: LG V40 ThinQ MSRP $960.00. Credits end at end of term, early termination, early payoff or upgrade, whichever occurs first. Second Year Promise full terms and conditions apply; see LGPromise.com. The Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) is $330 ($139 gimbal, $119 micro SD card, $72 Second Year Promise. Value for the LG Second Year Promise program is an approximation based on similar service).
Amazon, land of 1 million things you need and 5 million options for each of them, has quickly become the one-stop shop for an insane amount of online purchases. For me, that's because they have a wide selection, carry most of the brands I want, list them at near the lowest or the lowest prices I've seen in price comparison research (with shipping in mind), and, last but absolutely not least, because I'm a Prime member and the internet has made me a glutton for instant gratification — something that 2-Day (or two-hour) shipping panders well to.

"This is the best thing I've ever purchased on Amazon! They are blue-light-blocking, anti-glare glasses, which are super helpful for looking at a computer/phone screen all day long. I don't normally wear glasses, but I wanted to try them out before buying a pair from Felix Gray or Eyebuydirect.com. These are so cute and they actually work... plus they are $8.99! Can't beat it." — Madison Conley

Amazon Studios brings bold and innovative series and films from top tier and up-and-coming creators to customers in over 200 countries and territories. Original productions range from daring and timely subject matter such as Amy Sherman-Palladino’s award-winning The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq; to the critically hailed The Grand Tour, Mozart in the Jungle and Man in the High Castle. In film, Amazon Studios produces and acquires original movies for theatrical release and early window distribution exclusively for Amazon Prime members. At the 2017 Academy Awards, Amazon Studios became the first streaming service to win Oscars for Manchester by the Sea (Best Screenplay, Kenneth Lonergan and Best Actor, Casey Affleck) and The Salesman (Best Foreign Film). Recent notable releases include the box office success The Big Sick, which is one of the top streaming films on Prime. Upcoming films in 2018 include Lauren Greenfield’s Generation Wealth, Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself, Luca Guadagnio’s Suspiria and Felix Van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy.
“I think, effectively, you have a company that has conspired with about a billion consumers and technology to destroy brands,” argued Scott Galloway, a founder of business research firm now called Gartner L2 and a professor of marketing at New York University Stern School of Business, in a presentation last year. “Their attitude is that brands have, for a long time, earned an unearned price premium that screws consumers.”
Another potential growth area for Amazon is it advertising business. The company is expected to grab 4.1% of the total domestic digital ad spend this year to move into third-place behind Google (GOOGL - Free Report) and Facebook (FB - Free Report) , according to an eMarketer report. Amazon only claims a tiny percentage of ad dollars compared to its peers, but the e-commerce firm is projected to see its share of U.S. digital ad spending climb to 7% by 2020 to hit $10.92 billion.
Online surveys represent Internet users and, according to the Pew Research Center’s latest published data, 88% of Americans were Internet users in 2016. The proportion of the total US population using the Internet has been climbing by around two percentage points per year, according to Pew data. So, in January 2018, when we undertook our survey, it is likely that approximately 90%–91% of Americans were Internet users.
In April, Bezos announced that Prime membership had exceeded 100 million paid members worldwide. Bezos unveiled the figure in his annual shareholder letter — published since 1997 and widely considered a must-read among executives and business leaders around the globe — and noted that in 2017, Prime gained more new members than in any previous year. By comparison, Netflix at the time had 125 million subscribers.

Try as you might to rationalize Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, mother! does not accept rationalization. There’s little reasonable ways to construct a single cohesive interpretation of what the movie tries to tell us. There is no evidence of Aronosfky’s intention beyond what we’ve intuited from watching his films since the ’90s—as well as how often Aronofsky loves to talk about his own work, which is usually worth avoiding, because Aronofsky likes thinking the movie is about everything. The most ironclad comment you can make about mother! is that it’s basically a matryoshka doll layered with batshit insanity. Unpack the first, and you’re met immediately by the next tier of crazy, and then the next, and so on, until you’ve unpacked the whole thing and seen it for what it is: A spiritual rumination on the divine ego, a plea for environmental stewardship, an indictment of entitled invasiveness, an apocalyptic vision of America in 2017, a demonstration of man’s tendency to leech everything from the women they love until they’re nothing but a carbonized husk, a very triggering reenactment of the worst house party you’ve ever thrown. mother! is a kitchen sink movie in the most literal sense: There’s an actual kitchen sink here, Aronofsky’s idea of a joke, perhaps, or just a necessarily transparent warning. mother!, though, is about everything. Maybe the end result is that it’s also about nothing. But it’s really about whatever you can yank out of it, its elasticity the most terrifying thing about it. —Andy Crump

Amazon Prime membership in Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, India and the United States also provides Amazon Video,[8] the instant streaming of selected films and TV programs at no additional cost.[9] In November 2011, it was announced that Prime members had access to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which allows users to borrow up to one a month of specified popular Kindle e-books.[10] People with an email address at an academic domain such as .edu or .ac.uk, typically students, are eligible for Prime Student privileges, including discounts on Prime membership.[11]
Amazon discloses few metrics on its performance in apparel. Since one indicator of that is number of shoppers, we asked survey respondents who had bought clothing or footwear in the past 12 months if they had bought apparel on Amazon during that time. We also asked apparel shoppers if they think they are likely to buy clothing or footwear on Amazon in the next 12 months. Respondents were required to choose either “yes,” “no” or “cannot remember” (“don’t know” for the next-12-months question) as their answer.
In August 2005,[82] Amazon began selling products under its own private label, "Pinzon"; the trademark applications indicated that the label would be used for textiles, kitchen utensils, and other household goods.[82] In March 2007, the company applied to expand the trademark to cover a more diverse list of goods and to register a new design consisting of the "word PINZON in stylized letters with a notched letter "O" which appears at the "one o'clock" position".[83] Coverage by the trademark grew to include items such as paints, carpets, wallpaper, hair accessories, clothing, footwear, headgear, cleaning products, and jewelry.[83] In September 2008, Amazon filed to have the name registered. USPTO has finished its review of the application, but Amazon has yet to receive an official registration for the name.
Promising review: "As a clumsy person (like, get-kicked-out-of-stores-because-you've-accidentally-knocked-over-two-displays-while-trying-to-pick-up-the-original-display-you-knocked-over clumsy) who loves nail painting, this has been a gift sent down from Cedric Diggory himself. I love this thing! I haven't been able to spill nail polish once, and that is a feat and a miracle. Even if you're not ultra-clumsy, it's just a convenient helper when nail painting." —JL DiceEuromonitor International estimates that Amazon US sold $24.6 billion of clothing and footwear in 2017, of which $20 billion was sold by third-party sellers. We estimate that this total would place Amazon roughly level with Walmart, America’s biggest apparel seller—although we note that Walmart achieves this position primarily through first-party sales while Amazon is largely transacting third-party sales.
Need a last minute gift? Can’t get out of the house? Realize you forgot to pick up something? With FREE Two-Day Shipping and more from Amazon Prime, your shopping problems are solved. You get unlimited deliveries with no minimum order size, and with millions of eligible items, the options are practically limitless. When shipping to select metro areas, Prime members also get FREE Same-Day Delivery on over a million items and FREE 2-hour delivery with Prime Now on daily essentials and groceries. With FREE release-date delivery on eligible pre-order items, you can enjoy highly anticipated books, movies, and video games as soon as possible.

The service debuted on September 7, 2006 as Amazon Unbox in the United States. On September 4, 2008, the service was renamed Amazon Video on Demand. The Unbox name still refers to the local program, which as of August 2014 is no longer available for downloading purchased instant videos. On February 22, 2011, the service rebranded as Amazon Instant Video and added access to 5,000 movies and TV shows for Amazon Prime members.

"This is the best thing I've ever purchased on Amazon! They are blue-light-blocking, anti-glare glasses, which are super helpful for looking at a computer/phone screen all day long. I don't normally wear glasses, but I wanted to try them out before buying a pair from Felix Gray or Eyebuydirect.com. These are so cute and they actually work... plus they are $8.99! Can't beat it." — Madison Conley

Promising review: "I've been boiling various pasta noodles at least twice a week for over 25 years. When I first saw the Fasta Pasta microwave cooker demo video, I was a bit skeptical, but interested enough to purchase the product from Amazon. After using the product three times, I can honestly say that it not only cooks pasta very fast, but better, with less mess and energy, than boiling the noodles in a pot. Just follow the simple instructions and you will have perfectly cooked pasta without having to check it while cooking for readiness. I wish that this product had been invented years ago." —George Miller
Brian Sheehan, who teaches advertising at Syracuse University, said Amazon's tactics are "fair game," at least until the U.S. regulators determine otherwise. While it's common for big-box retailers to launch private-label brands based on what sells best in their stores, Amazon could be viewed differently because of its size and level of influence, he said.
Indeed, Amazon casts a long shadow over a number of industries. Grocery stocks plunged when the company acquired Whole Foods Market last year. Walgreens (NASDAQ:WBA) and CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) fell when the company acquired PillPack this summer, and an eventual entry by Amazon into the pharmacy space still hangs over the sector. The 2016 launch of Amazon Prints sent Shutterfly (NASDAQ:SFLY) down 12%.
On July 15, 2015, to commemorate its 20th birthday, Amazon celebrated "Amazon Prime Day", which Amazon announced would feature deals for prime members that rivaled those on Black Friday.[24] Also that month Amazon Prime announced[25] that it would be signing Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, formerly of BBC's Top Gear, to begin working on The Grand Tour, due to be released in 2016. On July 13, 2016, Amazon Prime said customers placed 60 percent more orders worldwide on "Prime Day".[26]